Over the past fifteen years, a number of mountain sports—primarily downhill skiing and snowboarding, but also ski boarding, telemark skiing and others—have seen tremendous increases in the number of new participants in the youth and young adult age categories, which has forced ski centres to modify their terrain offerings to satisfy this growing market. One aspect of ski centre terrain modification has been the creation of the “terrain park”. Terrain parks, which comprise a variety of elements including jumps, spines, halfpipes, quarterpipes, boxes and handrails, among others, are commonplace at most North American resorts today, and vary in size from just a few elements to approximately one hundred elements per park. With the exception of the handrails and boxes, almost all terrain park elements are built entirely from snow. In some cases, ski centres may have individual elements outside of a designated terrain park in random locations on ski trails. In other cases, ski centres may have officially-sanctioned freestyle aerial sites, from which skiers train in various competitive freestyle disciplines. The common thread for ski resorts that have terrain parks, random elements and/or freestyle aerial sites is that they almost always contain jumps of some shape or form.
With respect to specific jumps and jump sites as a whole, the most common form is that of the “table top”. Table tops essentially comprise a takeoff, a flat “table” area in the middle, and a landing. Other jump sites that are common in terrain parks and that are similar to table top jumps include “big air” jumps and “gap” jumps. Sometimes, rails, boxes or other features are incorporated into a jump site. On freestyle aerial sites, the jumps are known as either “floaters” or “kickers”.
Depending on the jump size, skiers, snowboarders, ski boarders, telemarkers and other mountain enthusiasts (hereinafter collectively “skiers”) catch varying degrees of air from the jumps. Often, these jumps are considerably large and can supply a skier with over 50 feet of air. Further, because the takeoff structures are usually somewhat tall, and the respective landing areas located below a knoll, a skier who is uphill and waiting to use the jump will not be able to see whether the preceding skier has vacated the landing area. As a result of crashing skiers, as well as uninformed terrain park users who wander into inappropriate locations, it is common that skiers do not vacate landing areas quickly. Accordingly, a skier who unknowingly proceeds to use a jump despite there still being someone in the landing area may collide with that person and cause serious injury or death to that person and/or themselves.
Although U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,057 and French Patent No. 2,706,317 deal with automated detection systems in relation to skiers, up until now, there has never been an automated means for improving the safety surrounding ski jump sites. At certain high-traffic ski centres across North America, terrain parks have been staffed with employees who act as “spotters” for jump users. These spotters position themselves on the jump site in a suitable location so as to see whether the landing area is clear and safe for the next skier. In the event that the landing area is not clear, the spotter will signal to the skiers who are uphill from the jump site to wait until the landing area has been cleared, at which time the spotter will provide an “all-clear” signal. Unfortunately, very few ski centres have the resources to employ such spotters. Similarly, those resorts that do employ spotters often are not able to afford to supply a spotter for each of the many jumps throughout their respective terrain parks. Further, spotters are human, and as such may be distracted or fail to pay attention while a jump is in use, thus creating the potential for a serious accident.
There is, thus, a need for an automated system that improves the safety surrounding ski jumps.